Chapter 25: The Marauder's Map
Fred still had half a mouthful of stolen sweets when Douglas looked at the twins and said flatly,
"The Marauder's Map. Why are you pretending to be mute now?"
He leaned back in his chair.
"I've never seen nighttime wanderers as disgraceful as the two of you."
Fred swallowed and shot back righteously,
"And I've never seen a professor who patrols the corridors under a Disillusionment Charm."
Even while complaining, George knew resistance was pointless.
He obediently handed over the Marauder's Map.
As for hoping Douglas somehow hadn't discovered its secret—
That was laughable.
If he could identify the Marauder's Map by name, then he must have been watching it the entire time.
After taking the map, Douglas saw the outrage on their faces and let out a cold snort.
"I know what you're thinking. I wasn't spying on you all along. You two idiots just happened to hide yourselves right beside the place where I was already standing."
Then he tapped the map lightly.
"And for the record, this thing was supposed to be kept inside the cabinet for confiscated contraband."
The twins' expressions changed at once.
First shock, then sudden excitement.
"Professor, are you Padfoot or Prongs?"
"Or Moony? Wormtail?"
They were so thrilled they could barely contain themselves.
After all, for the past two years, a great deal of their success in avoiding Filch had depended on this map.
Douglas shook his head.
"None of them."
He looked down at the parchment.
"I was once one of the people who benefited from the Marauder's Map. When I graduated, I was the one who returned it to its original place."
His mouth curved faintly.
"I was looking forward to seeing what kind of successor would find it next."
Then he looked at the twins with obvious disappointment.
"What a pity. I never expected its next owners to be so incompetent that they would actually get caught."
George and Fred both went red.
They might not care much about grades. They might not mind being called troublemakers.
But hearing Douglas say that even their talent for mischief was poor—
That stung.
And worse, they couldn't argue with it.
Douglas chuckled and crossed one leg over the other, looking nothing like a stern professor.
"All right. Back to the important matter."
He pointed lazily at them.
"From now on, the two of you will report to me every night for detention."
At that, the twins straightened slightly.
Douglas continued mercilessly,
"The detention itself is very simple. You will memorize the entire fourth-year Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook."
The look on their faces became one of pure despair.
This was no detention.
This was a death sentence.
Douglas tapped the table, dissatisfied by their dramatics.
"Don't look so tragic. It's two and a half months. How could it possibly be that simple?"
The twins stared at him.
Then Douglas smiled.
"After memorizing it, you'll write the entire thing out for me from memory."
He folded his hands.
"When you've memorized the whole book properly, your detention ends."
At that point, George and Fred wanted nothing more than to kneel and ask the heavens whether justice had completely vanished from the world.
Now they truly regretted not letting Filch take them away.
They would rather scrub chamber pots for a month than memorize a textbook and reproduce it by dictation.
George spoke with great grievance.
"Professor, we still have Quidditch practice…"
Douglas considered that for a moment.
"No problem. On days when you have Quidditch practice, you don't need to come."
The relief that flooded both twins at once was almost visible.
At least their final scrap of joy had not been taken from them.
Douglas waved them toward the door.
"Go back to Gryffindor Tower."
When they reached the threshold, he added,
"Starting tomorrow, your detention begins. I'll inform Professor McGonagall in the morning."
He lifted the Marauder's Map.
"And this will stay with me for now. You'll get it back when you've behaved properly."
Then his tone turned colder.
"Of course, if you manage to get caught again while owning the Marauder's Map, then from that moment on, you will no longer deserve to possess it."
The twins left Douglas's office wearing expressions fit for a funeral.
Yet the instant they were out in the corridor, they seemed to become completely different people.
"Fred, I think our Quidditch practice has been far too lax. If this continues, Slytherin will destroy us."
"Oh, George, I quite agree."
"We should definitely have a serious talk with Wood about arranging extra training."
Back in the Defense Against the Dark Arts office, Douglas unfolded the Marauder's Map.
The first thing he did was locate Harry Potter's name in the Gryffindor dormitory.
Then he noticed another name overlapping nearby.
Douglas recognized it immediately.
Ron WeasleyPeter Pettigrew
A slow smile spread across his face.
"Heh. Wormtail."
He tapped the parchment lightly.
"Long time no see."
The first lesson on Friday morning was for seventh-year Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Douglas led all the seventh-years who had chosen the subject down to the practical classroom that had been prepared on the fourth floor.
This year's Head Boy was Mario Nott of Slytherin.
With a dutiful expression, Nott began introducing the completed work.
"Professor Holmes, this is the assessment room currently meant for the third- and fourth-year levels. Aside from a few traps and spell triggers, there are also several other features inside."
He gestured around the room.
"The rest consists mainly of the common Dark creatures studied in the lower years. Daily maintenance is currently being handled by Ruth Buniel and Ezekiel Clarke from Ravenclaw."
Ruth Buniel stepped forward and carefully explained each of the trap-spells she had arranged, along with the placement of the magical creatures.
There were Boggarts, Red Caps, Hinkypunks, Grindylows, Kappas, and several others.
Most of them had been supplied by Douglas himself.
He had specifically asked his editor, Slane, to help him procure them.
Naturally, certain more advanced and intelligent creatures were absolutely not allowed into Hogwarts.
Werewolves and vampires, for example, were out of the question.
The entire room had been divided by magic, with each creature placed in an environment suitable to its nature.
Douglas nodded in satisfaction.
"Mr. Buniel, Mr. Clarke—you will both write a formal report on this training area afterward."
From there, they moved on to the fifth-year practical classroom.
This room was entirely devoted to dark spell effects—though not the truly lethal or forbidden sort.
Everything here came from the material fourth- and fifth-year students were already expected to know.
What would be tested here was the fifth-years' understanding of Dark magic.
That meant hexes, jinxes, minor curses, and unpleasant but non-fatal malicious spells.
The idea was simple: fifth-years would be assessed on how well they could identify, avoid, and break such magic.
Of course, the spells in the room had not been added at random by the Slytherin students.
Everything had been arranged carefully based on the content of previous Defense Against the Dark Arts assessments.
Then came the sixth-year practical classroom.
The moment one stepped inside, the room shifted by magic into something that felt like a cave by a black lake.
The whole place was eerie and oppressive.
Within the transparent water, more than a dozen motionless corpses could just barely be seen beneath the surface.
Beyond the lake lay another stretch of land, half-hidden beneath thick, gloomy mist.
In short, Douglas was extremely pleased with all of it.
And after class, the system seemed equally pleased.
The homework completion category had even been awarded a score of 9.
Douglas had assigned the seventh-years this work partly as an experiment.
He wanted to see how much these students had truly mastered over the years, despite the shallow state of Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching under previous professors.
So far, the results were encouraging.
Some people might say Douglas was making far too much of all this.
The material had already been taught. The students had already been tested. Why waste time reviewing it again?
But the truth was that Defense Against the Dark Arts was unlike most other subjects.
Students very often did not truly master what they were supposed to have learned.
Douglas still remembered that during his own O.W.L. year, one student had been unable to cast even a proper Levitation Charm.
Another had produced a flickering, sputtering Lumos.
And in seventh year, quite a few students had failed to perform the Shield Charm correctly, even though it was part of the sixth-year curriculum.
If Douglas wanted to remain in this post with any integrity at all, he could not simply muddle through.
After the seventh-year class ended, the fourth-year Gryffindor lesson began.
George and Fred, now the unfortunate class representatives, had already received Douglas's note.
So they led their classmates up to the practical classroom on the fourth floor.
The two of them looked thoroughly miserable, and their classmates regarded them with obvious sympathy.
After all, the twins had boldly vowed to investigate the contents of the practical exam in advance the night before.
Who could have guessed they would be caught and crushed before achieving anything?
Back in the Gryffindor dormitory, after being scolded for their own stupidity, they had told everyone exactly how their attempt had failed.
They had also told them about the detention—about Douglas forcing them to memorize and copy out an entire textbook.
Percy had merely snorted when he heard.
Ginny, with great sisterly loyalty, declared that she would share some of her sweets with her poor brothers.
Ron, however, had said smugly that he had known all along Professor Holmes would defeat them eventually.
That had earned him a thorough chase and beating all around the common room.
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